You Returned
from the Dead,
as did Lazarus,
the continuation
into your New Life
a Resurgence
from Deepest Darkness
*
You carry Now
profound insight
into Our Humanity,
as revealed by the modulated
Spring in your Step
the Smile,
the ardent generosity
and more importantly
the Absence of Sadness
*
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
To My Uncle Ty
*
To my Father who Honored this Day with Fervor
*
*
Soaked in the Loss of 8 Million
Dead, Wasted and Mutilated
You Grew
Honoring them Religiously
Every November
the Sound of church Bells
Bugles
A Command to Memory
year after year
the struggle for freedom
its Maintenance
*
Vigilantly you moved ahead
Marked with the Impermanence
of your generation
it was shock
not surprise
When It Happened All Over Again
*
You engaged yourself
as you knew They had,
the Millions who Fought
for your Freedom,
you Honored them
by never giving up
and Fighting for Ours
*
The Comfort in Connecting
One to Another
obliviating for a moment
immanent loneliness
one that never really goes away
rather stands for you at the Ready
Remains waiting
after Love’s
laughs and fears
*
Keeps us Longing
until we hear
in our Patter
the Breath
we draw
from an identical
Life Source
*
Atoms to Atoms
the Rumi in Us
*
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
To All My Sisters
Smooth Roundness
such Bells of Flesh
calling to Feed
both body and soul
Ring out in their Sensuous
appeal for tenderness
These bells, Embodiment
of how we nurture Life into Being
and Being into Humanity,
these fine bells
tense and loud at first
then longer
more Sonorous with Time,
extensions of our heart’s Fiber
like limbs of deeper giving
*
To sever these bells
is to remove our outward
manifestation
as Life Givers
it comes at great sacrifice
endows us, yes,
with a profounder grasp
of our responsibility
as Thrones of Life,
still
Bereavement
arises first
*
Art Work By Yaron Rosner
The Sun’s Power
Recedes
my body contracts
Wise to the oncoming Chill
*
Birds Gather
the Smell of thirsty leaves
books and classroom doors
the Sound of Bells,
distant Now
*
One more year
One more groove
in my palm
many more grey filaments
Connecting me Forward
And Back
to so much Time
Walking this Earth
Be it Half a blink
In the Span of this Spinning planet
All the same,
Crickets
Mindlessly pursue their rubbing
Now to keep Warm
until overpowered,
they Drop
*
Photograph by Nick Zungoli
A queen concealed
behind the mask of a male deity
your Realm, the undifferentiated
instinctual world, defines
our humanity or lack thereof
*
the earthbound laws of our world incarnate
limitations of our flesh
painful or ecstatic
your promise, trial by fire
leaves us with Bare Bones,
the beauty of which, unfathomable,
cannot be apprehended
*
the miracle of feeling
the Core of one’s existence
feared as punishment
experienced as the expiation
of hubris and its artifice
*
You rumble beneath us
shaming our lives wrapped
in the illusion of grandiosity:
we are but peons of honor
as we tread this Earth
struggling with your rules
until exhausted, we surrender
transform
or die
Pluto
The Romans
Fought, Conquered, Built
Engineered, Strove
A blend of enlightenment
and ruthlessness
they read papyrus books
Codices
furnished lavish Libraries
emulating the Egyptians
*
crisscrossing Europe with roads, aqueducts
and Arenas
they Ruled and Conquered
until they no longer did
*
the lengthy decline
immeasurable in real time
a steady collapse
such a cake
insufficiently leavened
cautiously sits instead of standing
from one generation to another
incrementally slipping
catching itself
then slipping a bit more
*
the Undoing of Civilization
culture, knowledge –
Worms yes, Invasions, Fire indeed
Time, certainly,
but more than that, Ignorance
engendering more Ignorance
until no one reads
except a handful in charge
No more principles of Life
only principles of Fear –
*
From illiteracy and terror
a darkness hovered for millennia:
the earth once round
was now flat, the sun
as center spurned
human Parthenogenesis
a fact
the importance of clean water, forgotten
questioning forbidden,
any attempt at dissolving dimness,
viciously repressed
*
Until ever so slowly,
we Progressed Back
to the Humanities
salvaging ancient manuscripts
repossessing reading, examination, discussion
simultaneously galvanized by
and galvanizing the Printing Press
Empowering Minds
at once Philosophical and Mathematical
Exposing a World
of Objective Reality
no more the realms of revelation
rather the laws of physics
no longer the punishing guilt and suffering
of an immaterial god
but cause and effect
of a Beautiful Sentient Universe
made of atoms, void
magnetic fields
*
and nothing else
*
Suffused Into our Humanity
As You Are,
You Breathe
Our breath,
Sigh our Sighs
Move with us like Water and Wind
Tug at our Bellies
some of us Listen
Others Not
sometimes you have a flute
sometimes a fork, a cup, or crowned with vine,
Millennia of Descriptions
have tried a hand
at Portrayal
we fail however at seeing
You
part of Us
Earthbound
Mysterious
Instinctual Wisdom
so frowned upon
by centuries of Virgin Birth
followed by centuries of Reason
Yet you defy them all
Carrying, as you do
an Intelligence
not to be changed
By Place or Time
Painting by Felix Vallotton
La Source
Nails hammered to leather soles
striking the Cobblestone
Screaming in the Wooden silence
of those Black and Silver days
I heard them Go
Such a Tuning Fork, that resonance
is the Background of my life
the Tapestry of Noise against which
all else Echoes
Muttering incessantly I cannot die
hold on, lest the Memory fade
in the race to Forget
I am the Wave Length of those buildings
that are no longer
I am a Frequency to those who come
revisit the places of horror
we dare not Ignore
I resonate Relentless, such ghost pains
for those who will listen, remember
and Keep Living
For those who deny, won’t hear
I drive them to Tone Madness
I, I am Sound Memory.
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
Deep-rooted,
the Need to see
Dirt in the Other
engaging in condemnation
appears to clear the Self
like a shower to our shadow
*
the vigorous Cleanse
however,
comes Smeared with
a most disturbing shade
of sanctimoniousness
(The price, Surely, of Sight
in Black and White Only)
*
It’s in the Softening
of our Vision
the edges merge, a gray Depth
rises from the picture’s
Perspective
*
Righteousness however
seldom Softens,
it hounds with indignant Piety
more vehemently
as if trying to strip
a layer of Skin
remove the darkness it disavows
the disturbing Reality
that there are not always definitive answers
in our ever-changing World
where so much remains the Same
*
Art Work By Yaron Rosner